A Sanukan Holiday~~

The snow drifted lazily to the ground. Nanulians flew above the houses, hanging up banners in preparation for tomorrow's celebration. Sanukans stayed on the ground, decorating the winding wooden pathway with golden flower petals. A band was sitting on a ledge on the mountainside, playing the Song of Powers. 

Davina kicked her feet as she sat in a chair, letting her mother braid her hair. 

"Sit still," Rubiana Starr said with a laugh. Her eyes crinkled in joy. Victor swept into the room. 

"You two take so long," He said. 

"Oh, calm down. We've got plenty of time before the bonfire at the mountain base."

"Are we going to ride a Thunderbird carriage?" Davina asked.

"Of course, sweetie," Rubiana laughed, "But not if you don't sit still."

Davina didn't have to be told twice. She instantly sat straight up, stiff as a board, legs no longer swinging. 

Victor laughed. "Your mother's kidding. We'll ride in a carriage no matter what."

~~~

There was a family of five deer.

The mother was called Solea; the father, Arobur; the young boy, Beacon; the eldest of the fawns, a girl named Infinity (or Finni for short); and the youngest, who had recently learned to walk (and was very proud of the accomplishment) was named Hope.

Together, with some family friends they knew in their part of the forest, they gazed around at the lit-up world, the sky twinkling and sparkling with the light of celebration.

"Caelani is the best power!" Beacon announced proudly. "With his big wings, an' cool, uh, big wings..."

"Luuuu-nee! Luuuu-nee!" Finni chanted. "She has big wings too!"

"Oo-nee-corn!" Hope piped up.

"Sylvia, the unicorn?" Solea replied, amused.

"Sylvia! Sylvia!" Finni echoed loudly. 

"Oo-nee-corn!" Hope squeaked again in reply. Arobur chuckled.

"Well, I like all of the powers. Without Caelani, there would be no sky; without Ayearth, there would be no sea; without Ecio, there would be no ground; without Lunee, there would be no night nor voices; without Sylvia, there woud be no us. Even without Claaws, there would hardly be a circle of life."

The three fawns shivered. "I don't like Claaws!" Beacon cried.

"Scary," Hope whispered. She scooted closer to Solea.

There was a pause, then Finni said stubbornly, "Lunee is still the best!" 

And that made Arobur laugh. 

Hmm... Did they have this when Catastrophe was a kid?

Va~

Where I grew up, they called All Power's day Creation Day, during the winter solstice. We were teemi, you know, and Christians. When the Church arrived here (through humans moving in from earth), it restructured to make itself more in tune with Kyngdom's actual history. One upshot was that we celebrated Creation Day as the day God created the world, not the Powers were created. At that point in time, all serious teemi/Christian thinkers had accepted that the Powers were myths. It's funny to think of it now.

All the foxes in the area would congregate in a small field by the Foamysilver River. You'd meet friends you hadn't seen for years. Some of the humans, who lived in a farming village nearby, would come and put out roast chicken in the snow. It warmed you right up and made you merry. Some of the older foxes would sing psalms, while the pagans competed with Paeons to the Powers, especially Luni and Claaws, since these two were supposed to be more intimately connected with foxes than the rest. To celebrate the new life, a lot of our young foxes, including me, were allowed to make our first real killing on the day and become an adult.  I'd stay up the whole night and day with my friends, singing to the stars, rolling eachother in the snow and composing palindromes. There was a teacher who I first met there- a linguistics teacher called Thekdilla. Now I follow in his footprints.

Now I have pups. I've moved quite a bit from my old home, to Sprocketville, where I live on a farm with some good people. There it's all pagans- though really, by now, who can blame them? I still beleive in a God who made the Powers, but who else will believe me? It's quite a setback. The fox gatherings around here blood, so I don't go to them. I keep All Power's Day at home. They, perhaps, will never know the great unity of the fox community that I had.

But we still keep the old rituals. In the evening we and several humans and animals gather up at a house and celebrate the six great forces of this world: to Luni first we sing, the seductive, the Power of sound and silence, who gave us speech that we could tell what we found to eachother; then feast to Ecio, who made the earth, who invented the atom, and gave us stability out of the darkness and shapelessness of the void, the matter we now transmongrify into our own bodies; once we have ended this, and had a bit of time to digest, we have contests, races and fights and climbs, to remember Sylvia, the fruitful, the lively, who gave the world life, who made things that grow and walk and swim, who gave us the bodies whose abilities we appreciate. We look up to the sky and see the moon and all the stars, so far and high, remote and yet together, and remember Caelani. We look at the snow, and the dragon's-breath on the windows, and remember Ayearth, whose charge is liquid, who gave us change, as every wave is differnt that shakes the shore of permanence.

Last, when the night is old and the east begins the grey, in the quiet ere the lark rises from his sleeping chimney, we remember Jaaws. He gave us Power. It is he that shall take us away at the end, as he has taken away our friends and children. It is through him we pray for their peace.